In the Middle Ages, a man called Geoffrey Chaucer was revolutionising the literary scene of the day, becoming one of the greatest poets and fathers of literature in England. His use of English in his ...

Cotton, a valuable raw material and a mainstay of the textile industry, has been around for centuries and remains one of the most crucial resources to this day. Cotton has been used by humans as far ...

There have always been fashion ‘tribes’, from fops and beaux, bucks and dandies to Goths and punks, but the ‘macaronis’ of the 1760s and 1770s exceeded them all in their dedication to excess and ...

“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as a good tavern or inn.” So wrote Samuel Johnson and for many, this remains true today. Think of an ...

The year was 1888 and the location Bow in the East End of London, a place where some of the most poverty stricken in society lived and worked. The Match Girls’ Strike was industrial action taken up by ...

Who are the British? Do they really drink tea, eat roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and never leave home without an umbrella? Find out more about true Brits; past and present, myth and legend, fact ...

“There were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new.” Oscar Wilde in his novel, ‘The Picture of ...

Richard I the Lionheart (r. 1189-1199) is perhaps best known for his exploits in the Third Crusade. His war against Saladin is one of the classic stories of medieval chivalry and crusading. But ...

The term ‘hangover’ is universally understood to mean the disproportionate suffering that comes after a night of over-indulgence. But where does the term actually come from? One possible explanation ...

In today’s society, we take pride in our presentation; the way we look, dress, and comb our hair are all intrinsically linked to beauty standards and social norms. “Pretty privilege,” a theory that ...

We take single-sex public toilets for granted today. It is hard to believe that when public conveniences were first constructed, the vast majority of these toilets were just for men. Great Exhibition ...

Carmarthen, pronounced Caerfyrddin in Welsh, is the county town of Carmarthenshire, located besides the River Tywi. It has been an important administrative centre since ancient Rome, while also being ...